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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

World
soccer body FIFA president Sepp Blatter alongside FIFpro, the global
organization of professional soccer players, football legend Eric Cantona, film
director Ken Loach, MIT professor Noam Chomsky and former United Nations
Palestine rapporteur John Dugard have denounced Israel’s detention of
Palestinian soccer players, including Mahmoud Sarsak who has been on hunger strike
in Israeli prison for the past 86 days.

In a June
12 letter to Israel Football Association president Avi Luzon, Mr. Blatter
expressed concern that Mr. Sarsak and two other Palestinian players were being “illegally”
detained “in apparent violation of their integrity and human rights and without
the apparent right of due process (trial).”

Mr. Blatter
called on the IFA “to act with the utmost urgency” given “the graveness of the …
situation” to

“draw the attention of the competent Israeli authorities to the
present matter with the aim of ensuring the physical integrity of the concerned
players as well as their right for due process.”

Mr. Blatter’s
letter came in response to a June 9 letter by Palestinian Football Federation
president General Jibril Rajoub bringing the plight of the Palestinian players
to the FIFA president’s attention as well as a statement by FIFpro and a letter
to British sports minister Hugh Robertson written by prominent sports, cultural
and academic figures.

By writing
the letter, Mr. Blatter has added significant weight to calls for the release
of the Palestinians. The letter also serves to ensure that the FIFA president
is seen to have stood up for the rights of Palestinian players should Mr.
Sarsak die as a result of his pro-longed hunger strike. The letter contrasts
starkly with the FIFA president’s past reluctance to consistently take a stand
against political interference in soccer in the Middle East and North Africa or
the violation of player’s rights.

By contrast
in its statement demanding the release of Mr. Sarsak, FIFpro asserted that
players in Palestine often do not have full freedom of movement. “The freedom
of movement is a fundamental right of every citizen. It is also written down in
the FIFA Regulations that players must be allowed to play for the national team
of their country. But actually for some footballers it is impossible to defend
the colours of their country. They cannot cross the border. They cannot visit
their family. They are locked up. This is an
injustice,” the statement quoted says Philippe Piat, FIFPro’s
vice-president and president of FIFPro Division Europe, as saying.

Palestinian
peace negotiator and PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat warned meanwhile
that Israel was responsible for the lives of Palestinians in Israeli prison.

Mr. Sarsak
was put in administrative detention in 2009 as an “unlawful combatant” and has
been held since without being charged. Israel has so far declined to say why
Mr. Sarsak was detained at a military checkpoint as he was travelling from Gaza
to the West Bank to join a Palestinian soccer team on the West Bank, according
to General Jibril’s June 9 letter. General Jibril said Mr. Sarsak was
interrogated over a 30-day period before being imprisoned without being
formally charged or put on trial. Israeli sources privately suggest that he is
suspected of being a member of Islamic Jihad, a Gaza-based militant Palestinian
group.

A 25-year
old soccer player from the Gaza city of Refah, Mr. Sarsak has been on hunger
strike together with Akram al-Rekhawi, an imprisoned diabetic, and Samer
al-Barq. The three men refused to join hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jail
who ended their hunger strike on May 14 in demand of improved prison conditions
because they were not included in an Egyptian-mediated deal.

Human
rights groups said Israeli officials had promised to release Mr. Sarsak on July
1 if he agreed to end his hunger strike, but refused to put the offer in
writing. Israel agreed as part of the Egyptian negotiated deal to more family
visits, an end to solitary confinement and limits to a controversial policy
that allows Israel to imprison people for years without charge. Militant
Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad pledged in exchange to halt all
attacks on Israel.

Mr.
Sarsak’s continued hunger strike amid reports that his deteriorating health has
made him blind focuses attention on the plight of several imprisoned
Palestinian soccer players and threatens to dash Israeli efforts to prevent a
potentially explosive situation that could be sparked by Palestinians dying in
Israeli custody.

Messrs.
Sarsak and Al-Rekhawi implicitly acknowledged that it could take their death to
galvanize public support for the plight of Palestinian soccer players and the
remaining hunger striking prisoners. In a letter published last week, the two
men said: "There is still enough time, and the support that comes late is
better than that which does not come at all. It is better that you receive us
alive and victorious rather than as lifeless bodies in black bags. Our people,
our leaders in Gaza, in the West Bank and outside, and freedom loving people of
the world, we cry out to you, and to all people in the world who believe in the
justice of our cause: do not abandon us to the vindictive hands of the jailers
to take what they want from our frail bodies."

Islamic
Jihad’s armed wing claimed responsibility for a foiled attack on Israel last
week in which an Israeli soldier and militant were killed. The group’s Saraya
al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigades) said in a leaflet that one of its fighters, Ahmed
Abu Nasser, was killed as he tried to cross into Israel from Gaza to kidnap
Israeli soldiers. The group wanted to exchange the soldiers for Messrs. Sarsak,
Al-Rekhawi and Al-Barq.

Israel last
year released more than a 1,000 prisoners in a deal with Hamas while at the
same time strengthening controversial Jewish settlements in the West Bank.Last month Israel returned the remains of 91 Palestinian members of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, most of them killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis,
in a move described by Israeli officials as a gesture intended to help bring
the Palestinians back to peace negotiations.

Mr. Sarsak
is one of three Palestinian soccer players in Israeli detention. In contrast to
Mr. Sarsak, Israel has said that it arrested Olympic soccer team goalkeeper
Omar Abu Rwayyes and Ahmad Khalil Ali Abu El-Asal, who plays for the Aqabat
Jaber Palestinian refugee camp soccer team, on charges of having been involved
in a shoot-out in January with Israeli troops. The Israeli military said the
two men were among 13 people arrested following an attack on Israeli troops in
the Al Amari Palestinian refugee camp near the West Bank town of Ramallah.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile